Chilli peppers have been a part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites located in south-western Ecuador that chilli peppers were domesticated more than 6000 years ago,[6][7] and were one of the first self-pollinating crops cultivated in Central and South America.[8]

Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them (in the Caribbean), and called them “peppers” because they, like black and white pepper of the Piper genus known in Europe, have a spicy hot taste unlike other foodstuffs. Upon their introduction into Europe, chillies were grown as botanical curiosities in the gardens of Spanish and Portuguese monasteries. But the monks experimented with the chilli culinary potential and discovered that their pungency offered a substitute for black peppercorns, which at the time were so costly that they were used as legal currency in some countries.[9]